


born down by the river wild

by Odaigahara



Series: Soulmate September 2020 Plus [6]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Animal Transformation, Bodyswap, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders is Extra, Fairy Tale Curses, Frogs, M/M, Nature, Prince Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, detailed descriptions of what's basically a south carolina wetland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27149008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odaigahara/pseuds/Odaigahara
Summary: Day 23: 24-Hour Switch*The new body saw the world in front of him, to his sides, and partially behind him, which was Roman’s first clue that something had gone very wrong. The second was his bulging throat, the third his wet slimy feet, and the fourth his position on a nice, rot-crumbled log, next to a clump of lichen.Because he was a frog. That was what he was saying here. He, Prince Roman of Pheria, slayer of three whole wyverns and half of a fourth one because his brother had gotten there at the same time, was an amphibian. He’d fallen into the body of the toad’s sleeker cousin on his eighteenth birthday, when he was meant to swap with his soulmate... which meant his soulmate was a frog.
Relationships: Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders
Series: Soulmate September 2020 Plus [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932382
Comments: 22
Kudos: 96





	born down by the river wild

**Author's Note:**

> Not really any trigger warnings for this one, except maybe implied isolation.
> 
> Many thanks to parallelmonsoon for beta reading! 
> 
> Also, I know it's October, but I am doing these prompts anyway so too bad.

The new body saw the world in front of him, to his sides, and partially behind him, which was Roman’s first clue that something had gone very wrong. The second was his bulging throat, the third his wet slimy feet, and the fourth his position on a nice, rot-crumbled log, next to a clump of lichen.

Because he was a frog. That was what he was saying here. He, Prince Roman of Pheria, slayer of three whole wyverns and half of a fourth one because his brother had gotten there at the same time, was an amphibian. He’d fallen into the body of the toad’s sleeker cousin on his eighteenth birthday, when he was meant to swap with his soulmate... which meant his soulmate was a frog.

Roman would have felt abject despair at the prospect- a  _ frog! _ How did that even happen, how would he take an amphibian to the finest plays in the land, would he need to spritz it with water every hour- but it was difficult to feel too bad. The frog’s-eye view of the world was  _ marvelously _ fascinating.

Up close things were rather blurry, like looking through fogged glass, but he could see through distance clear as day: here a scraggle of gray moss hanging down from a tree among its hundred hairy fellows, there a parliament of cypress knees gathering rotting leaves in their center like an offering. To the frog’s mind- and there was a hint of mind left, moist amphibious instincts warning him away from too-dry ground- it was all prosaic and comforting, homeland and territory both.

Roman ventured a hop towards the water and scraped his belly over the dirt in the aborted leap. He had to sit for a second in bewilderment, frog mind wondering in its limpid way what the  _ hell _ that had been; then pride took command and he leaped for real, sending all caution home to weep and wail, and plopped unceremoniously into the pond.

Coolness engulfed him. He kicked out his legs and shot through the water, under pond scum and into clumps of waterweeds, and floated in their cover to watch the world go by. Looking up provided him a tableau of light and green shadow, dim sun passing through the algae on the surface and the sparse lily pads and filtering down in streaks; Roman saw the webbed feet of a duck paddle by, watched the ripples of its movement, followed after water beetles and darting minnows and felt his heart swell.

He spent some few hours lingering beneath the surface, only rising above the waterline when absolutely necessary and drifting with the current. Roman had never thought about what it must look like underwater, especially for something born to the life; he was in awe, soaking in the experience to replicate in paint or song, already planning out how to mix colors to get the precise shade of the water under noonday sun.

At some point he thought to go after some sort of insect, so that his soulmate- frog soulmate? Soulfrog? No, that sounded dumb- wouldn’t go hungry. He resolved to attack a dragonfly, those being the closest to a worthy foe he could find under the circumstances, and found to his chagrin that they really did see in all directions, and that a frog’s tongue did not, actually, flick out like that of the legendary chameleon.

He managed to catch a fly, then rested on a lilypad, pouting as best he could and side-eyeing a turtle who’d crept too close as it basked. The turtle looked back, beady eyes narrowed in what seemed like deep thought; then it crawled back into the water and disappeared under the surface with a faint ripple.

Good riddance. Roman sat for a while longer, relishing the feeling of breathing through his skin, and felt the world grow colder as clouds overshadowed the sun. Ducks squawked and quarreled with each other, flapping low over the water and splashing trails in their wakes; above him squirrels chattered in the cypress, darting damselflies alighting on leaves and bouncing off like raindrops if approached.

Soon enough  _ actual _ raindrops began to fall, one hitting Roman so hard that he startled and leaped back into the water. The chill of it didn’t really register; it just felt like more water on slick smooth skin, transmuted onto the frog’s frame to mingle with the mucous. He swam a little while, kicking his way nearer to shore to rest-

And barely dodged a strike from above, movement alerting his periphery before his mind could catch up. The shock drove him straight into a submerged root, stunning him, and the heron- for it  _ was _ a heron, black-eyed and rapier-beaked with great mantling wings- stabbed at him again, grazing his side and glaring with less empathy than even a dragon. 

Roman fled in great, clumsy strokes, the thought striking that if he died in this body, he didn’t know if he would come back, much less if his soulmate would- and cowered in the pondweeds, trusting in his soulmate’s camouflage to see him through the rain.

The encounter robbed him of most of his awe. This was  _ not _ how he’d envisioned his soul-swap, never ever, not even close- he’d laid awake imagining himself opening his eyes to the chambers of a fellow prince, delighting in his new face in the mirror and proudly introducing himself to the foreign royal family. He’d rehearsed speeches over and over-  _ Prince Roman of Pheria, at your service, my dear lady, and have I mentioned that we greatly enjoy your fine kingdom’s finer silks? Why, my own mother adores her silk scarves and handkerchiefs, and my father is never seen without some article of your nation’s traded jewelry on his person-- may I ask you of your son? I’ve heard of him, naturally, but we’ve never had the chance to speak- _

But there were no speeches to give here, no demonstrations of martial skill or musical ability to win over an uncertain potential ally. In his wilder musings Roman had imagined his soulmate a merchant’s son, or a baker’s, or the bastard child of a dairy maid in some far-flung region, rosy-cheeked and utterly common; he’d hazarded ways to gain their parents’ approval with Remus, conjuring quests for his soulmate to prove his worth.

Honestly. Why couldn’t  _ Remus _ have gotten the frog, Roman wondered bitterly. He would have been ecstatic; wherever he was right now, whoever had had the unfortunate experience of being dumped into his skin, Roman hoped he was doing better than Roman was. Surely one of them would have to have a soulmate worthy of the title. Surely one of them wouldn’t succumb to the inevitable mockery, when their body was paraded around with all the mind of a brainless amphibian, trying to- to eat  _ flies _ , or croak at people, or leap into ponds like Ophelia.

Logan and Virgil would be watching, he consoled himself. They wouldn’t allow his soulmate to do anything egregious with his body, just as they wouldn’t let whoever was in Remus wander off and get into trouble while they wore his skin.

It was a sparse comfort.

The rain pattered above him, nearly soothing now that the fear of the heron was past. Roman waited and drifted, letting the currents wash over him in calming rhythms, until day darkened to evening and the twilight came alive, chirps and shrieks echoing fractured through the water. He rose to the surface, hopping onto a low cypress knee to stare at the stars peeking through the canopy.

Then, feeling odd in his skin, he leaped onto the shore for real, badly startling a nesting duck, and felt something within him  _ shift _ . The sensation sent discomfort prickling through him; he puffed out his throat in pointless frog aggression, then shivered all over and-  _ grew _ , ground falling away below him and vantage changing, until he stumbled back and fell into the pond again, knocking his elbow on a root on the way down.

_ “Ow!” _ Roman blurted, offended, soaked in mud and pond scum, then froze, grin tugging at his lips. He leaped up, grimacing at how his bare feet squelched in the mud, and stared at the pale hands before him. Much paler than his own skin, nearly as light as milk or worn sandstone, but that was irrelevant- what mattered was  _ hands _ , hands and fingers and feet and  _ perhaps he shouldn’t be looking there _ and a chest and face and  _ hair- _

Roman hugged himself- his  _ soulmate- _ and cheered, twirling out of sheer glee. His eyesight wasn’t much better in this form, fuzzing as he tried to look farther than his outstretched arms; he’d have to get his soulmate glasses, like Logan’s but less unbearably scholarly. There was only so much nerd one could tolerate in the same small castle.

But really, even if his soulmate was a nerd, it didn’t signify at all. Roman was  _ flying _ .

“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,” he recited, marveling at the higher register of this voice compared to his own, its clear sweet cadence. “By Zeus and all his hordes of ill-favored illegitimate children, I can’t believe this!” With no one to address, he turned to the ducks he’d startled, bowing like he would to an ambassador or an audience. “To think, I’ve spent twelve hours wandering this pond as a frog, dejected and  _ disconcertingly _ moist, only to find that it was a curse all along! It’s an unspeakable relief, really. I’m sure you understand.”

The duck quacked at him in clear aggression. Roman raised his hands in surrender and backed up, half-intending to find that heron and show it what happened when the frogs fought  _ back _ , and felt a shiver of muscle memory twitch him one direction. He followed it, curiosity piqued, and let his borrowed feet take him along a barely-beaten trail, through shrubs and dirt and low dripping branches. There was a petrichor scent in the air, earthy and fresh; Roman started brainstorming rhymes for it in his head, overcome with emotion. Everything was so  _ much. _

_ Petrichor, ancient lore, what’s in store, who I’m for... _

He hummed a few snatches of melody, chasing the ephemeral feeling in his head and trying to match it to sound.

_ Never bored, apple cored, waves to ford and battles scored, who  _ cares _ what all the nobles say... _

“As I walked out one morning May,” he sang aloud to finish the rhyme, delighting all over again in his soulmate’s lovely voice. He had to bounce in place to get the energy out. 

He added a riff on the next line, fingers itching for a lute or pianoforte, and his soulmate’s body-memory made him  _ stop _ , distant instinct telling that he’d reached his destination.

All thoughts of music fell away. His destination was a hollow tree, opening covered by a thin scrape of rock. Roman stared at it, something odd and heavy settling in his throat, and crouched to shift it aside, reaching past into the rotted divot behind. His fingers closed on a tinderbox, etched with initials; he set it aside, settling onto the ground, and looked carefully through the rest.

A scrap of blue fabric, likely some type of velvet and half-rotted with age. Another tinderbox, this time with scraps of paper inside; with his hands still wet and muddy, Roman didn’t dare risk touching those.

A tin soldier. A smoothed piece of glass. A torn-up poster, water-stained and barely legible, declaring the advent of a festival in some distant town. Marbles in a jar. Carefully-preserved feathers. A stained ribbon that had once been white, an eyeless doll, flint and a stub of chalk-

Roman couldn’t fathom what the hell it all meant, for one blank second; then he  _ could _ , and the devastation stole through him like a wildfire, a thousand times worse. Scraps of civilization, in a place he hadn’t seen a hint of humanity in no matter his wanderings. A man trapped as a frog, someplace too far from the nearest village to go for help-- too far to risk as a little animal, certainly, especially not when he might be accused of witchcraft or demonic influence once he was there.

So that left collecting what he had, sorting through it so often that the need had translated into unconscious movement, and... what? What else was there to  _ do _ , when you had only the night to yourself and no other living being in sight? When you had nothing and no one but the ducks and crickets?

Roman found hints of the answer, throughout the night: marks on trees, an old campfire, a woven shelter with the grass beneath it tamped down into something like a cover over the ground. The lowest of conditions, and it seemed like his soulmate  _ slept _ as a human, most of the time.

Of course he did. Being a frog with a frog’s mind would be so much more bearable than this half-existence, where every moment must mean teetering on the precipice of madness. Roman had seen what became of hermits, when no one spoke with them for ages and ages; and he’d never switched with his soulmate before, which meant his soulmate was younger or precisely the same age, which meant he could have lived like this for a good portion of his life so  _ far- _

His soulmate’s body wanted to cry at that. Roman wiped his eyes, steeling himself and straightening his spine, and took the sharper piece of glass that his soulmate had hidden away, finding a tree with a stretch of loose bark on which to carve. He didn’t know if his soulmate could read, but he did his best to scrawl out a message:  _ Prince Roman of Pheria _ , it said in his plainest script, and below it the best rendering he could make of a rose. There wasn’t room for any more. 

Roman scowled at the tree, betrayed, but there was nothing else to be done; he could hardly mark up every tree, not when his soulmate might not understand the changes at all or even like them. 

He curled up on the beaten grass, under the thin-leaved shelter, and tucked his temporary hands under his cheek.

He’d just have to hope that Logan and Virgil were having better luck with the person in  _ his _ body than he was in this one.

The night sounds kept him in a shallow, uncertain sleep, each shift in background noise forcing him to wakefulness. At some point he did drift off, though, light and fitful, and when he opened his eyes again it was to his own perfect vision, his own gorgeous decor.

Roman surged out of bed, stumbling into a bedpost-  _ ow- _ and stared wildly at his clothes. No real difference, except that it was the comfiest sleepwear he owned- what did  _ that _ mean? What had his soulmate been like, had he been frightened, had he known what the swap meant? Had he  _ said _ anything?

Virgil was at the door, eyebrows raised and shoulders slumped in relief. “ _ Virgil,” _ Roman blurted, “Stormy Knight, Lurks-A-Lot, finest of shadow skulkers,  _ please _ tell me-”

“Your brother’s soulmate managed to steal a bunch of finery and smuggle it out of the castle while wearing his skin,” Virgil said wryly, making Roman’s heart sink, “and  _ yours _ was a guy named Patton who looked really confused to be here. Gotta say, it was kind of a relief not having to chase two strangers all over the grounds.”

The relief made Roman melt. He exhaled, horror and grief leaving him in a rush, and Virgil ventured closer into the room. “I’m guessing his situation isn’t so good?” he asked, hands hovering over Roman’s shoulders; he patted his collarbone awkwardly, which was about as much comfort as Roman expected from him on a good day. “’Cause he seemed guilty trying to eat anything, and kept smiling and apologizing for stuff that wasn’t his fault.” Virgil cleared his throat. “Also, he kicked Logan in the nuts.”

Roman choked on a laugh. “He  _ what?” _

“L startled him, he jumped away and used him as a launchpad,” Virgil drawled. “He’s okay now, no worries there. Or I guess the same amount of worries as usual. No unnecessary worries.”

“You think every worry is necessary,” Roman accused, and the servant shrugged, a little movement of his shoulders that meant  _ yes, I know, but also I don’t give a shit. _ Virgil had the art of noncommittal motions down to second nature. 

The more important question clawed at Roman, though, demanding to be asked: he forced out, heart in this throat, “Did my soulmate- that is, did  _ Patton- _ ” And what a beautiful name, so musical, so cozy and simple, like the first note of a concerto- “Say... how to find him? Because I’m afraid I don’t have all that much detail. Really. As these things go.”

His face heated. Imagine, spending a night and day in someone’s body and not gathering enough information to find him again, what a  _ waste- _

“He said he’s near Cornberry,” Virgil said, suspicion flickering over his face, and Roman’s heart leaped. “Near water. Not much more detail than that, so Logan figured he’s not living somewhere permanently.”

“Likely because by daylight he’s a frog,” Roman said, and Virgil  _ stared _ . “And at night he turns back to a man. It’s very disconcerting.”

“Are you seriously telling me you spent the day as a frog?” Virgil asked incredulously, and Roman flushed for real. “Holy shit. This is the best day of my life, I  _ swear _ , didyou-- did you eat a fly. Please tell me you ate a fly, I want to mock you about it.”

“Shouldn’t we be focusing on the more important aspects?” Roman demanded, willing the red in his cheeks to fade. “Like, well- Patton, obviously! He’s a  _ frog!” _

Virgil paused, then swore. “Oh, you’re  _ right _ ,” he said vehemently. “He could be eaten at any time.”

“A heron could be devouring him as we speak!” Roman said in horror, remembering  _ his _ encounter all too well, and Virgil twitched all over in a full-body flinch. “Oh dear Aphrodite, if we don’t reach him before his amphibious hourglass runs low- we’ll have to leave  _ right _ away-”

“Hold on, are you saying I’m going with you on this? ‘Cause I already told Logan I’d deal with Remus’s asshole of a true love, who, let me remind you, stole  _ literally _ everything-”

_ “Virgil!” _ Roman shrilled, and the servant grimaced, snapping his fingers next to his ear. Ugh, fine, he’d been loud, what of it? This was important. “I’m not kidding! If we don’t find him, if something  _ happens _ to him,” Roman had to cut off, dread curdling in his gut at the thought of losing his soulmate so quickly, the one he’d been anticipating all his life, the lonely man with the sweet voice. “I- I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“I’ll get Logan to go with you,” Virgil promised. “And ask the stables to get a couple horses ready, and the kitchens to pack some food, and whatever else you need.” Roman blinked at him, feeling sensitive and oddly touched, and Virgil said, cheeks dusting, “What? It’s literally my job. Also, your soulmate seems cool.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Roman said, nerves and anticipation playing havoc in his chest. “I’ve never spoken to him.” Patton might not even want to leave his swamp. Would he like the havoc of a royal life? Would he be willing to accept the burden of it? The thought that he might  _ not- _

“I get the feeling you’ll get along,” Virgil said, understated and meaning the  _ world _ , because he was a pessimist and if he thought Roman had a chance- “He wouldn’t stop asking about you the whole time he was here.”

Roman brightened. “Really?” he gushed. “What did you say?”

“That’s for me to know and you to ask him when you find him,” Virgil deadpanned, and cocked his head toward the door. “Come on, Princey. Let’s find Logan and get this show on the road.”

Roman was all too eager to agree.


End file.
